Black sand beaches of Monterrico

Can there be anything much better than eating fresh pineapple? Yes! Eating fresh pineapple (papaya, coconut and watermelon too) for lunch with friends on a black volcanic sand beach in Guatemala!

At the end of last week I decided (rather last minute) to head off for a week with my friend Tyler to the beach (even though I´d already paid to be in Xela) because I was feeling a little stagnated here, not really working, not really traveling, not taking classes...the change was fabulous! We had a great time just doing nothing for the week. It took about 7-8 hours to get ourselves down to the beach on Monday (via Chicken buses) but as far as public transport goes around here, the trip was really quite smooth. Then we just hung out the next three days, buying fresh fruits and veggies to eat for lunch, swimming in the ocean (getting sundburned...when will I learn!?). Also, two other past ICA students randomly checked into the same hotel as us Monday night and it was a lot of fun to have them there to hang out with also.

In case some aren´t aware, tomorrow is the begining of Semana Santa (easter week) which here is quite a large celebration. All of the kids are out of school, hardly anyone goes to work and there are celebration and religious processions galore. The saying is that all the gringos in the country go to Antigua for the week (reputed to have the best Semana Santa celebrations/processions etc) and all the Guatemaltecos go to the beach for the week...Actually, because of this, I think we picked the perfect time to hit up Monterrico. When we got there on Monday the town felt almost empty but when we left on Friday, there was already a lot more activity and people. We almost got to watch the town transform through the week from sleepy hot beach town to destination of the week. But, that means this next week the place is going to be packed and after that, the beach is going to be filthy dirty etc. So we timed it just right. The beach itself was pretty, but dangerous for swimming. The slope of the beach was quite steep and the ocean was quite greedy, if one isn´t careful, it would be easy to be swallowed up and sent out to see by the hungry rip-tides! Even so, it was fun to play in and we even fit in a few night time swims. (The moon was so bright! And in comparison to Xela, the stars so dim, but I think that must just be due the higher elevation here!) I do think I will likely be finding bits of black sand in my hair for the next week or so though from thrashing around with the surf. It´s a rough life.

So, now I´m back here in Xela which surprising feels a little like home. It was actually quite nice yesterday (after a full day of travel, 10 different forms of transport, a cultural museum on a sugar finca, a random side trip to Puerta San Jose, and a dinner of PBJs on a crowded chicken bus, and more ranchera music than I care to remember...)to get back into Xela and know there was a house with a hot shower waiting for me, being more sure of where we wanted to get dropped off than our (nearly too) helpful* microbus driver did. And then, after showering, Tyler and went out to grab some tacos and ran into a large group of our ICA friends who all greeted us with enthusiastic hugs and smiles. Yes, it´s a large city and I miss open spaces and green sometimes, but really, I think there are worse places to come back to.

As for the next step...? I´m planning on going to Lago Atitilan for 4 or 5 days with another ICA friend this weekend for the Semana Santa celebrations (plus, as a destination it´s relatively close to Xela, so transport won´t be too hectic). After that, I´m debating whether I want to try to stay here and actually volunteer or I may go on a 6 day trek organized by a group here called Queztaltrekers that would leave on the 11th. However it works out, it will be great I think! I´m also considering re-locating to the ¨Lake¨ (the same place I´m going for the weekend) because everyone raves about how great it is...maybe take another week of spanish classes, who knows... Well, I have to run and meet a friend for lunch!


*This is a characteristic of all public transport ayudantes and drivers, normally, its wonderful, you just have to know the name of where you want to end up and they´ll put you on the right bus and make sure you get off at the right time. Sometimes though, it throws them a bit when you aren´t a completely uninformed tourist...

Saying goodbye and bailando!

It was my first week without classes last week and spent my time trying to start volunteering (as I mentioned the orpahange before). Unfortunately, middle of the week the public school teachers went on strike (and are still on strike) so I haven´t been able to investigate the school I was maybe going to work out. And, the orphanage is very disorganized, making me feel a little bit like my time is not being taken full advantage of there! Oh well, that´s Guatemala time/life for you.

Also, for whatever reason last week more than half of the students at the school left, making it a week of goodbye´s (last night here, please come out and dance/party...nearly every night). It was sad to say goodbye to so many people who have been here basically since I have, but also maybe time for a change. Plus, I finally made it out dancing and I love that! I also started taking salsa classes (private) and, while a bit pricy (in terms of Quetzals) still fun. I feel so uncoordinated and clumsy! My teacher has been a proffesional dancer for years, lived in Europe for awhile performing etc...anyhow, having so many people take off has made the school feel practically empty this week because hardly any new students arrived. I´m glad that there are a couple of people though who I get along with well who will be here for another month or so. Also, I think I may head out somewhere for Semana Santa with a friend from here (he´s from the bay area, an ultimate frisbee playing, taking a year off school, almost went to Whitman but ended up at Vasser who understood me perfectly when I said, ¨I don´t do school...¨) and hopefully maybe do some other traveling later with him, although right now our ¨schedules¨don´t match up perfectly. It does make me laugh though how much he reminds me of all those fabulous Whitties out there...I guess small liberal arts colleges do just attract a certain brand of people often..

Wow, I feel like this entry has been quite scatter brained and illogical in it´s flow. Hope it makes sense to everyone! I am thinking about taking a few more hours of classes here from a different school for only 5-10 hours a week because as much as I don´t like the class thing, I think it does probably make a difference in the quality of Spanish I speak. One thing that is kind of neat though is that lately I´ve been feeling more confident in at least being able to communicate in Spanish, even if I am murdering the language! I guess that´s progress of some sort though...

Last Saturday we went to the movies for the first and watched Blood Diamond. It was in English with Spanish subtitles. I guess we English speakers are a bit spoiled hardly ever having to watch movies with subtitles! The funniest thing was that there was an intermission in the movie. In mid sentance the movie stopped and the lights went on and at first we were all wondering what happened but then others in the theatre got up to use the bathroom and stuff and we figured it was intentional! Ok, I´m going to go for now!

Tajumulcu, Orphanages, and life in general

This last weekend I went with a group of about 20 other ICA students to climb the volcan Tajumulcu which is the tallest point in Central America (nearly 14,00 ft). It was an overnight camping trip and quite an experience. To begin with, the whole trip was quite disorganized because ICA is not an official tour group. For example, there was no cook stove, the tents would not have kept out the rain, and I´m sure there was no first aid kit with us. That was what I expected though, so was fairly well prepared (and very grateful that I had my own sleeping bag!) and the trip was well worth it. It started out as an adventure when we stopped for breakfast and the director of the school told us that the owner of the comedor we ate at knew of a different, much shorter route to climb the mountain. The only catch being that our private transportation bus could not make the drive up to the starting point. So, the same guy offered to take all 18 of us up in the back of his lage double tire traction truck (with all our stuff) up to the starting point. I´ll post a picture later of this truck, but I still can´t believe we all fit! Also, I can hardly believe there was a road that far up in the mountains! So, after getting dropped off, we hiked uphill for an hour or so to the base camp area about a 45min-1hr walk from the top. Part of the group walked up that afternoon to the top and, although it was quite foggy at that point in the day, the view was still incredible. That night, most everyone nearly froze to death (I was fine, and slept under the stars with a couple other students). Man, I´ve seen stars before, but there is really nothing like start at 14,000 feet. That was incredible. The next morning we got up at 5 am to climbe the volcano again to watch the sunrise. Pretty neat. Plus, now I have bragging rights about having been on top of the tallest volcano in Central America.

Last Thursday I decided to not take classes anymore, although I by no means get all the grammar. I just wasn´t enjoying them anymore and was ready for a change. So, that leads me to the orphanage. I went yesterday afternoon to an orphanage called Hogar Temporal (it is government run) with another friend from the school. We took a hike yesterday up to this little park on top of a small mountain with 28 boys between the ages of 5 and 12. It was exhausting, but a good experience. I get the impression that the volunteer program is quite disorganized, but think I will start working there fairly regularly. It is was pretty incredible how starved for attention the kids were, there was hardly a moment where my hands were not being held by some child and several of the young boys who didn´t know my name would just say ¨Mami¨ when they wanted my attention...

Other than that, life keeps flying by! Today is the youngest daughter in my faily is turning 10 and I was woken up at 6:15 am by the traditional firecrackers outside the house. We are having a ¨refraccion¨this afternoon to celebrate and myself and Paul (the other student in my house right now) took both her and her mother to a Xelaju soccer game last Wednesday as her birthday present. (She is a fanatic fan and had never seen a game in the stadium before!) I´m still trying to track down salsa classes here, but am in no huge hurry. Since I am still staying with an ICA family, I can still participate in school activities etc, which is a nice option to still have. Well, that´s all I have for now!

Descanso (break)

I decided this weekend that I needed a little descanso from activity, so am spending my first full weekend in town all day. It has been a well needed little break so far. Thursday night I went with Lili (my host mother) to a Marco Antonio Solis concert in a nearby village. (I had never heard of him before, but he is a famous Mexican artist who writes/sings love songs and Lili absolutely loves his music). We were going to go in a car with one of her friends, but something came up at work for her friend in the last minute so we had to take the chicken bus down there. I´m not sure if I´ve written before, but these buses are crazy. I think there were probably 75 people on a bus made to sit 36 people (two to a seat). Plus, I tend to be taller than most people here and my knees jam into the seat in front of me when sitting down. I can´t imagine being what it is like to ride the buses being taller! Anyway, we took the bus down the night of the concert and slept over night with the family of one of the full-time boarders living at Lili´s house (going to universidad) who is from San Marcos. It was definitely a whirlwind trip since I had to get back for classes Friday morning, but worth it. I was by far the only person around with white skin...

I believe next week will be my last full week of Spanish classes, but time will tell. I think I may have to continue attending at least one a week if I want to keep living with my host family while volunteering. Apparently the office at ICA isn´t very friendly to students who stay in houses after stopping classes (and I think not so friendly to the host family´s also) We will see though. My host mom said she´d let me stay no matter what but that it would be better if I can sort of keep ICA pacified by being slightly involved with them still. Whatever, it will work out.

So, one of the probably not so good things I discovered last week was Sarita´s ice cream shops ("since 1935"). Why must I have such a soft spot for the tasty treat? I guess overall though, there are worse ways to spend one´s money, plus it costs just enough to be a little expensive :).

Well, here´s to the new month of March and the adventures waiting to be had!